Jithu Madhavan is a Malayalam filmmaker and screenwriter best known for his works, Romancham (2023) and Aavesham (2024). He scripted both movies as well. Both these films were huge hits. Now he is working on the sequel of his debut work, Romancham. His movie Aavesham, starring Fahadh Fasil, was a Pan Indian hit once it got released on OTT, and the characters – Ranga and Amban became immensely popular.
Jithu Madhavan – The master of commercial & fun entertainers
Jithu Madhavan – An aeronautical engineer by profession
He completed aeronautical engineering from Bangalore. Cinema had always been his dream, and he started dreaming about films during his engineering days. After studies, he worked in a firm in Bangalore for 4 years before joining the film industry.
Jithu Madhavan started his film journey as an assistant director in 2015. ‘Utopiayille Rajavu’ was his first work as an assistant director. He later assisted John Paul in Guppy, who later became his producer for Romancham.
The hitmaker of entertaining films with fresh themes
Jithu Madhavan made his entry in M-Town with the 2023 horror comedy release ‘Romancham‘. He turned a real life experience from his Bangalore days into his debut movie. Written and directed by Madhavan himself, the film featured Soubin Shahir, Arjun Ashokan, Sajin Gopu, Siju Sunny and Abin Bino in the lead roles. Made on a budget less than 3 crores, the movie collected 70 crores from the box office, thus becoming one of the smash hits of the year.
Next year, Jithu directed Aavesham starring Fahadh Fasil, Sajin Gopu and Social media influencers Hipzster, Mithun Jai Shankar and Roshan Shanavas. The movie made on a budget of 30 crore collected 156 crore from theatres in just one month before OTT release, and became the biggest hit of Fahadh’s career, in a lead role. The movie received love from across the country and was listed among the top movies of the year by different reviewers, thus becoming a Pan-Indian hit – a rare feat for a Malayalam film.
In 2025, he wrote the script of Painkili, which fared well at the box office. He is currently filming a Tamil movie starring Suriya, which marks his Kollywood debut. Aavesham 2 is also in the pipeline.
He tied the knot with his lady love, Shifina Babin Pakker, in 2023, who has worked with him as an assistant.
Jithu Madhavan – Some interesting and lesser-known facts
1. Both his releases, Romancham and Aavesham, had no female lead and had only less significant female characters.
2. His first two films, Romancham and Aavesham, were comedy flicks and blockbusters at the box office.
3. Romancham was based on a real-life incident that happened in the life of Jithu and his 6 bachelor friends during their college days in Bangalore. It happened in Marthahalli, where he stayed with his friends during 2005 – 2009.
4. He has worked as an assistant director for 2016 acclaimed film, Guppy.
5. Filmmakers bought the copyrights of the song, Karimkali, which was later used as reels in Aavesham. The reels featuring Fahadh went viral, and people started making their own reels, including celebrities belonging to different fields.
6. While Jithu Madavan was writing the screenplay of Aavesham, Fahadh was in his mind. It made writing easy for him. He made Fahadh speak Kannada-Malayalam (Malayalam in Kannada dialect), which worked well for the film.
7. The idea of Aavesham came to his mind, while he was doing his first film.
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